NFTs in Games: a Brief Analysis

NFTs. Sigh.

To put it out up front, I think NFTs are pretty awful for videogames (and generally pretty awful as a matter of fact). But I think it’s important to put this sort of belief through a more rigorous assessment. In this case, I’d like to consider how NFTs affect the three ways people enjoy games that I outlined in my previous post. Granted, the NFT craze has largely died down, but NFTs will certainly continue existing as a concept. I have no doubt that at some point, there will be another surge in interest.

So, to start with, we have to consider what NFTs actually do, in contrast to a typical digital commodity. NFTs, ostensibly:

A) Restrict the total number of a given commodity to a finite number.

B) indicate possession of a commodity on a level outside of the game space.

C)facilitate the exchange of commodities.

D) Does all of the above in a “zero trust” environment.

Now, D and B aren’t really relevant to an individual videogame’s experience. There’s plenty to talk about regarding these topics, but, within a game space, the videogame world doesn’t care if the human “truly” owns the commodity– what matters is how that commodity is programmed to interact with the game space. So, I’ll predominately be looking at

In narrative terms, NFTs are broadly problematic. Not because they limit commodities, as most all games involve finite goods, but because they do so outside of the scope of the game. Narrative is about pulling a player into a game world, and the existence of NFTs pull the player back. Now, there are ways one could integrate an nft exchange into a game world, but that could only function in multiplayer experiences. In a single-player experience, NFTs can only detract from the Narrative

On the other hand, sandboxiness is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand NFTs are inherently restrictive. Rare and/or expensive NFTs will be out of reach to the vast majority of players, which means they’ll have less content available to them in game. Now, even the sandboxiest of games require some restrictions; it’s not guaranteed to be negative. But in the vast majority of games, restricting content arbitrarily is bad for the sandboxiness quotient. On the other hand, the ability to buy-in to a range of content is broadly positive– a player can jump in and start playing on their own terms. So again, a mixed bag.

And now we’re left with challenge. In singleplayer terms, buying-in is largely neutral. Assuming the game is balanced so that buying-in is optional, it doesn’t have to affect the experience. The real issue comes in competitive multiplayer. Virtually every competitive activity is predicated on an assumption of equality. Most sports involve a mirror-match of players and playing fields, and those that don’t have players alternate roles. In the videogame world, fighting games may provide a diverse roster of characters, resulting in asymmetric combat, but, importantly, both players have an identical roster of characters to chose from. Equality is key to the competitive experience, because competition is an interaction between people. It is a comparison of wit, strength, reflexes–human ability at large. If I lose in a game, I can ask: was I not quick enough? Was I not precise enough? Did I lose sight of the big picture? And I can work hard to better myself in those ways.

Challenge is about improving one’s self to overcome obstacles, and NFTs are an obstacle that, by design, the vast majority won’t be able to overcome. (And even if one does obtain the disposable income to buy a rare NFT, the challenge they faced (making money) is wholly irrelevant to the competition at hand.) Sure, it may be fun for the lucky and rich to lord their overpowered NFTs over others, but the peasants below have no incentive to play a game that they’re destined to lose.

Now, there is a final positive to NFTs in games, and is, I believe, the primary driving incentive: Money. NFTs can, hypotheticly, be utilized in multiple games, thereby saving money, and most importantly, can be used as a speculative asset. But this value exists wholly outside of the realms of narrative, challenge, and sandboxiness. I’m almost considering adding money as a fourth source of enjoyment—receiving money is certainly an enjoyable experience. But I refuse to fully accept that. The three forms of enjoyment coexist in a delicate balance; placing the three in tension with each other is the key to great games. I fail to see how the somber story of Majora’s Mask, the the freedom of expression in Minecraft, or the soul-crushing difficulty of Dark Souls would be improved by NFTs, or any similar monetary system.

And all of the above only applies if NFTs work as their proponents intend. While the NFTs themselves are decentralized and censorship resistant, it is still up to a centralized entity—the developer—to actually implement them. And unless NFT proponents have a means to force devs to actually Implement NFTs, then the entire premise of a decentralized system falls flat.

So, once again, NFTs. Sigh.

Borderlands 3 and The Reasons we Play

I broadly found Borderlands 3 a pretty meh game, though I still played through it with a friend, as it’s one of the few franchises that really designs their games with full co-op functionality.

Anywho, one of the many things that irked me in Borderlands 3 was the high-tier weapons bloat. In previous titles, I spent most of the first playthrough working with green- and blue-tier weapons and items—a purple-tier item was a cherished valuable, and an orange-tier might not even show up. (for reference, item rarity goes white, green, blue, purple, orange, and then some weird colors that think you only get in the dlcs) In Borderlands 3, however, I found myself flush with purple- and orange-tier weapons even from the early game, or at least “making do” with blue quality uniques.

I found this item rarity creep annoying for two reasons: one, it limited the weapon variety in game, since the array of lower-tier weapons were obsolete from the start (which was especially a shame since they added additional unique features for the various weapons manufactures); and two, it was immersion breaking—purple and orange weapons are referred to as “epic” and “legendary” in terms of rarity, but they end up being a dime-a-dozen

I realized: we’re looking for two completely different experiences from this game.

Broadly speaking, I like to picture video game players as falling into one three categories with regards to how they enjoy games: we have challenge freaks, narrative junkies, and sandbox kids.

Narrative junkies are all about the story. For us (as I include myself in this category) It’s about finding a world to get lost in, a character to relate to, a plot to become invested in.

Challenge freaks are all about finding obstacles to overcome. At it’s extreme, we have the completionist and speedrunner types, but challenge can be found in any game that requires precision and/or thought in one’s actions.

Sandbox kids are into free-form creativity. Building structures, wandering through open worlds, and customizing characters are all aspects of sandboxiness

Challenge is, in a sense, a form of interactivity, but I distinguish it from sandboxiness in that challenge refers to interactions that have positive and negative consequences, while sandboxiness refers to interactions that are largely trivial. Choosing your weapon loadout is a aspect of challenge; choosing your hairstyle is an aspect of sandboxiness. And the reason certain weapons and hairstyles are included in a game is an aspect of narrative.

Even games that heavily focus on just one of these angles tend to benefit from throwing a bone two the other two. A great example of this is in Minecraft. Many players tend to enjoy building elaborate structures in survival mode more than they would in creative. The additional challenge and narrative associated with survival mode makes the sandbox experience more fulfilling.

Likewise, I don’t think anyone is committed solely to one of these three camps. While I broadly prioritize narrative in my gaming experiences, there are some games I play primarily for the challenge they pose, and sometimes appreciate a good sandbox experience as well.

Now, back to Borderlands 3. From a narrative perspective, the high-tier weapons bloat is a detriment. Certainly not a deal-breaker, but annoying none the less. However, from a challenge perspective, it’s a non-issue, as there are still super-high-tier weapons and attributes that are acceptably difficult to acquire. From that perspective, why should the devs bother messing with things that

A key part of creating and adjusting features in a game is understanding how these features impact a game’s challenge, narrative, and sandboxiness. This, I think, is an important consideration within the final question I posed in my previous post. An obvious fix from one of these three perspectives may not be seen as such from the other two, and a developer needs weigh these impacts for any bug fix or balance change they make.

Exploits And House Rules

(Apparently I’m a moron and left this as a draft instead of publishing it back in September. So… merry Christmas?)

As I talked about in my very old posts, interaction is the key defining feature of video games as a medium. It is a near unique feature of video games that one’s actions are capable of impacting the narrative we experience. Interactivity can come in a range of forms, but one of the key aspects of interactivity is the ability to create challenge.

These challenges can be wide-ranging: a split second decision in combat, a choice between two or more opposing factions, resource management, and many many more all come together to create and engaging experience.

Now, in an enjoyably challenging game, we would expect to see numerous sets of choices to be made, and there should be some difficulty in discerning the best choice in a given situation. However, no game is made perfect, and many, if not all, have a range of exploits and bugs that disrupt their web of challenges.

As an example, let’s look at an exploit in Crusader Kings II. To give some reference, the game is a feudal lord simulation. The world is divided into historic counties, which are ruled over by an intertwined network of counts, dukes, and kings. A major part of the game is managing your relationship with your vassals, lest they revolt. However, due to a fluke in game mechanics, the lowest in-game rank of nobility, the barons, are unable to join a rebellion. Normally, if a player controls too many counties directly, your vassals get angry, and you’re expected to distribute some counties to new or existing lords. However, if the player has no dukes or counts as vassals, then it doesn’t matter how many counties you hold.

One of the counterpoints I hear about exploits like this is that, simply put, you can just ignore them.

I’m aware that stating this as such may seem like I’m making a straw man, but I actually think it’s a valid point. You really can ignore an exploit like this. Crusader Kings II was built with the without this exploit in mind, and plays just fine.

And there are situations where the repercussions can be more severe. To bring up a separate example, I’m going to bring up fast travel systems. In particular, the go anywhere, any time sort of systems such as in Oblivion or Skyrim. Now, I always dislike these sort of setups– I think it’s antithetical to open-world games as it disincentivizes exploration. What’s the point of making a big beautiful world if players are just going to skip over the vast majority of. Now, there’s an alternative here– you can simply avoid using fast travel. However, these games were built with fast travel. If the devs are working with the assumption that the player will be walking everywhere, they’re far more likely to make that traveling experience more dynamic and varied.

On one hand, when there’s a obviously superior option sitting right in front of me, I always get this nagging sensation that I’m not playing at my best. Granted, this doesn’t seem to bother some people nearly as much as it bothers me. I recently saw a forum post where someone mentioned playing through Metal Gear Solid 3 in only one camouflage outfit for their first play-through. Doing this would seriously hurt my brain, but I guess for some people it’s really just okay.

Secondly, these house rules are a perpetual reminder that the game is, well, just a game. By having a rule for gameplay exist outside of the game world, it means your thoughts are constantly being pulled outside of the game.

Bear in mind, I have nothing against the odd house rule or two. I’ve played through Resident Evil 4 a stupid number of times, and these days I try to come up with some creative restriction to keep things interesting. Rather, I think the issue becomes particularly problematic when you have to start stacking multiple house rules, especially when these rules disrupt systems that are well-integrated into the game’s design. Each one adds a little more to that nagging thought in my head—each one pulls me a little more from the experience of the game itself.

As an individual player, one rarely has the resources to playtest and determine the ramifications of a given “fix.” what are we paying money for, if not to have devs make decisions on these sorts rules? But I am left with a question to ponder: how does one draw the line between a (mostly) harmless exploit and a problematic one? Video games find themselves caught in a discrepancy between creator and player—an issue which I am sure exists within all media, but is exacerbated by the interactive nature of games. And the question I am left asking myself, at what point does a creator decide to accept a game as it is, rather than attempting to conform players’ experiences to their own desired vision? If it doesn’t hurt my brain too much, I’m going to try and tackle this question for my next post.

What’s in a name?

Today I figured I’d explain the current name of this blog, and, in the process, expand on some concepts I touched on in my last post.

To start, we’ll have to take a look at narratives as a whole. Essentially, every narrative is actually impacted by the media through which it is delivered. Even if the story is entirely identical, the medium will leave it’s own distinct character. For example, An audio book, read aloud by an individual, will have a specific tone and pacing that would be left ambiguous in its written form.

We can break down all forms of media into these basic properties, and see how stack up against each other. As noted above, audio books, radio and other audio media have a defined tone over a written piece; TV and film, in turn, add a visual component that brings it’s own set of advantages over radio. However, for every advantage that comes with a more advanced or complex medium, there is a corresponding disadvantage. It’s easy to assume that TV is wholly superior to radio in conveying information, since you have an audio and visual component in TV, as opposed to just audio. However, if the goal is to create a tight, focused narrative, that extra component may just get in the way. In radio, you only have the words of the speaker to focus on, without a screen full of images that distract from the message. It is for this reason that I generally prefer radio/podcast news over videos: TV news stations love to throw flashing graphics at you, when I would much prefer to just hear what’s going on in the world.

When looking at works within a given media, the best examples of narratives will leverage the strengths of their chosen media whilst mitigating the impact of their weaknesses. One excellent example of such leverage can be found in the use of color in Schindler’s List. Given that the vast majority of the flim is entirely shot in black and white, the girl in red becomes a moment of striking contrast for the viewer, and we become fixated on her, much like Schindler himself. While this girl in red does exist in the original book, her depiction there comparatively lacks weight, as there is simply no way in which a novel can generate color contrast in such succinct and unmistakable terms as can a film. Overall, We can think of color as being one aspect of many that film (as a medium) wields as a unique advantage.

For a videogame, their unique feature (and consequently, their greatest advantage and flaw) is interactivity. Through interactivity, videogames receive a host of unique properties to implement in their stories:

• They are the only media that a consumer can not only give up on, but actively fail at.
• They are the only media where it is possible, or even expected, to unintentionally miss content.
• They are the only media that take effort.

I’ll certainly be exploring how these properties are utilized (with varying degrees of success) in games, but that will be the topic of many more articles to (hopefully) come. For now, on to my title. In many games, the first moment of interaction, the first moment wherein the player is given agency, is when they are asked for a name. The player is given complete freedom to make this choice, and their decision is injected throughout the game. True, a name may have little to no effect on the progression of the game, but it certainly has an impact on the mindset of the player. Many, including myself, name their character after themselves, be it for immersion, wish fulfillment, or plain laziness. Others turn their name into a recurring gag—a slur, innuendo or pun to be referenced in perfect deadpan by the unassuming game. And others yet turn their chosen name into an entire persona, exploring each game through a set of entirely new and unique eyes. Videogames are, fundamentally, a series of choices, and there are virtually no choices in any games that give as much agency to the player as this very first moment.

Next Time: a game I didn’t like. And probably one or two I did like, for comparison.

 

Why I’m Here

I spend too much time thinking. And not enough time doing. So I figured I’d start writing out my thoughts as a way to cheat the system—turning my thoughts into… something, with the minimal effort.

So what do I think about? Videogames, mostly. I like games. Well, not really. Most games I’ve played, I generally haven’t liked. But, there a select few out there that have embedded themselves in my consciousness as a more significant experience than just about any other moment in my life. As a result, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what made games I actually like… likable, and why I keep throwing myself at fresh disappointments in the hopes I’ll find that next high. I don’t think anything here is particularly revolutionary; it’s more framing it all in a way that makes sense for me. So here’s my three points of evaluation:

 

1. Gameplay. In the broadest sense, I think of gameplay as anything in-game that involves player interaction. Anything that makes it… a game, really. What makes gameplay ‘good’ can vary a lot from genre to genre, and even game to game, but I tend to fall back on Sid Meier’s famous quote: “a game is a series of interesting decisions.” when I find gameplay engaging, it’s usually because choices I’m given feel significant—that they contribute to my success or failure, that they have notable opportunity costs. The choices you make can be big or small, but they should (almost) always have meaningful alternatives. If a choice is so obvious as to have only one viable answer, it’s not really a choice. And without choices, it’s not really a game.

2. Narrative. I use the term loosely here, since I generally think of narrative as anything that is non-interactive in-game. Plot is the big one here, but I also think of setting, art direction, and characters as included here. (Yes, I know players can influence the plot in many a game these days, but, for the most part, these games are typically comprised of long stretches of linear plot interspersed with brief moments wherein the player choses which stretch of plot to continue down. As such, these plot junctions can be considered gameplay, but the plot that precedes and follows them are non-interactive.) Much like what I look for in other media, I tend to like well rounded characters, focused and/or interesting themes, at the very least, a plot that hasn’t been done to death a million times.

3. We’ve already covered everything that’s interactive and everything that’s non-interactive—what’s left? For my last criteria, I look at how narrative and gameplay come together. How does gameplay reflect the narrative? Create a connection between the player and the world they experience? Most, if not all games achieve this on some level (e.g. those guys are bad, and that’s why you’re shooting them), but for the truly great, virtually every aspect of gameplay provides an additional connection to the narrative.

 

So that’s what I look for. Games that lack one of more of these qualities are quite numerous, and I’ve enjoyed plenty plenty of them well enough, but they always feel… a little lacking:

A game with bad gameplay can be narratively engaging, but I might as well be watching a movie.

A game with no narrative can have fun gameplay, but it will lack in depth of meaning.

A game with with good narrative and good gameplay can be an amazing experience, but if it fails to bring them together, it will have missed out on leveraging it’s true potential.

Not many games succeed at all three(and most that do probably do it unintentionally), but those that do have the potential to create an experience that can’t be found anywhere else.

 

Next Time: more about games.